(Cancun) At the Cancun WTO Ministerial AIDS activists criticized the deal
reached by WTO Members August 30, about how countries with insufficient
manufacturing capacity can make use of the public health flexibilities stated
in the Declaration on TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, signed two years ago
at the Doha WTO Ministerial.

“As the Ministerial opened, Bob Zoellick, Pascal Lamy and others were eager to
take credit for this deal, claiming it as a shining example of a WTO that works
for the poor people and for people with HIV,” said Sharonann Lynch of Health
GAP. “On the contrary, bullying from the US and the EU gave us a deal that
prioritizes the profit motive of Big Pharma and compromises access to medicines—
business as usual for the WTO.”

Activists pointed to complicated new obligations of generic manufacturers and
importing and exporting countries required by the agreement as proof that
the “solution” would be difficult, if not impossible to implement. These
include, but aren’t limited to: the requirement of compulsory licenses in both
importing and exporting countries, the creation of new avenues for bullying of
countries that try to use the deal, and public and private efforts by the US to
exclude countries that have may have some manufacturing capacity, but are
unable to do domestic production because they lack economic efficiency.

“The solution could have been very simple and straightforward, using a model
such as the WHO and other experts have suggested,” said Gaelle Krikorian of Act
Up-Paris. “The complexities imposed by rich countries are designed to uphold
drug company monopolies and to discourage widespread generic competition in
poor countries.”

“The red tape that binds this ‘solution’ will strangle people with AIDS, and
others who are dying without access to desperately needed medicines,” said Asia
Russell of Health GAP.

The WTO’s next step is to create a permanent amendment to TRIPS that would
permit countries to obtain exported generic medicines. Activists demand that
the permanent amendment return to the letter and the spirit of the Doha
Declaration—which prioritized access to medicines for all—by removing the new
burdensome conditionalities imposed by this temporary waiver.

“This solution is being exploited by the US and EU to put a human face on the
WTO. That human face is a mask. Unless countries are able to routinely use the
flexibilities in TRIPS, clarified in the Doha Declaration, countries should not
be obligated to respect patents on needed medicines, period,” said Chloe
Florette of Act Up-Paris.